The company Gutehoffnungshütte (GHH), a joint-stock company engaged in mining and steel production, emerged from the St.-Antony-Hütte ironworks established in Oberhausen in 1758 and went on to become an important mining and engineering company.. Paul Reusch (1868–1956) was chairman of the board of management of GHH for many years and he used a comprehensive reporting system to control the company. This reporting system, which gave him a monopoly on information, did not correspond to the official executive structures. This enabled him to control geographically dispersed and legally independent parts of the group and to ensure that his power could not be challenged by the family which owned the company.
Paul Reusch (1868–1956), black-and-white photograph, 1896, unknown photographer; source: MAN SE archive at Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PaulReusch.jpg?, Creative Commons License CC BY 3.0 Deed / Attribution 3.0 Unported, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.